As I come to the end of writing my latest novel I cannot help but return to the subject that I like least and yet what I was considering at the beginning of the year; marketing. As previously mentioned in earlier blogs, I have dabbled with marketing, but not enjoyed any great success. In fact, I cannot say that I particularly enjoyed the experience. It does seem, however, to be an absolutely necessary requirement in my ongoing quest for a greater readership and an increase in the awareness of my work.

I am not anti-marketing. I understand its role in the world of commerce. Being a marketing guru is not a delusion from which I suffer, however. Although I have looked at various resources, read articles, and looked at successful campaigns, the subject has never captured my imagination. That said, I have a very good reason to return to it. My wife. She has always supported me in my writing. Her belief in my ability is one of the most important factors in my continued efforts as an author. She pointed out that as good as my books are it really does not matter if no one reads them. They could be the worst penned stories in literature and the result would still be the same, as an author I would exist in total oblivion.

Her role is not just as a motivational coach. She does not just stand on the side-lines shouting at me to try harder. We have discussed the subject of marketing seriously, by which I mean that we have agreed that I am going to have to spend some money to make it work. Like so many other people money is not a vast resource to which I have unlimited access. A budget is going to be required. Also, I have to make decisions about employing professionals. I am lucky that I have some artistic ability when it comes to graphic design, but I have to remember that there is one resource that is even more valuable than money and that is time. Do I have enough of it to spend on making this work?

I am at the early stage of this project. I am still deciding on what my goals will be, how I will measure my achievements, and what processes I am going to use to get there. It is already decided that I will approach this with a systematic attitude. I am creating a means of capturing everything that I do and recording the results to help me judge what is the most efficient means of marketing my product. I will be spending time looking at the basics of marketing for beginners, which is how I see myself. My writing is going to be taking second place for the foreseeable future. I am not entirely comfortable with that. As I have said previously, I did not become a writer so that I could get into marketing, but it is unrealistic of anyone to presume that they are going to get noticed just because they wrote a book.